Humour brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

“When I waste my time digging past the fresh coat of erudite language, much of the content is a regurgitation of the same tired discussion from ages past. […] Once you strip away the laborious language, you have yet another bit of fluffy gamer opinion written by a young student.”

I wanted to write a blunt critique of this post by a developer ‘regurgitating the same tired discussion from ages past’ about whether games criticism can be written in any meaningful way by non-developers, but my KiaSA patented irony-o-meter catastrophically overloaded from an infinite recursion loop in its circuits and instead I’ll have to spend my time scraping the remains of the cat from the ceiling.

Still, the author goes on to explain in the post’s comments:

“It was not my intent to say [because you’ve never made a game, shut your mouth] that seems to be a common interpretation.”

Now, a cynical person might suggest that people who aren’t professional writers shouldn’t produce written criticisms until they’ve spent some time understanding the intricacies of concisely expressin… oh great, there goes the back-up irony-o-meter.

I do believe that Devs can create a better game through channeling user input.

However, most big game studios these days do the “community manager”, “forum den mother” approach to filtering this drek. I have felt this was an error but alas, the gray beards were right. You need a forum minder to sift through this unstructured primal scream of MMO “friendly helpful ideas”.

Lost in Translation

Why most games or software products in general fail is due to design level loss of focus (i.e. they listened to TOO MANY outside voices about direction). Rift today is a GREAT example of a tightly focused game that shows real craftsmanship. Rift is like a Mona Lisa of games. Just as good on the details as in the initial visual prettiness.

It’s obvious that Rift had the equivalent of a great designer who “get’s it” and did the technology translation of user desires into executable code. It’s Masterfully presented, and a joy to play. Oh and as a bonus it’s commercially PROFITABLE too!

Frankly it don’t get much better than this. [really] But to listen to the blogging community it’s either a ‘been there done that’ OR “why oh why does it not have PLAYER HOUSING [or insert other inane fringe feature here].

Think about how a builder would respond if after building a modern day Taj Mahal, people started blogging immediately “seen it done it” NEXT!

At the end of it I feel that if the MMO blogging community wants to actually be heard… they had better start talking more towards ideas that are actually executable given current technology, staffing availability, cost benefit defendable. Otherwise… you will mostly continue to be ignored by the people who make the key driving decisions.

So, be a technology translator not a a parrot of user wants and desires. Help the poor overworked devs make better games by giving the RIGHT feedback. Heck be a heavy contributor on a Beta cycle! You may get to see Mr. Wizard behind the curtain.

I would extend your reasoning to blogs, by affirming that unless you’re the author of a blog entry you’re not really qualified to reply to it. Which means of course that this comment is invalid crap which you should disregard.

I submit to you this thought: should these blogs within the so-called blogosphere, be written by anyone who demonstrates the minimal mental capability of merely creating one? These supposed fountains of opinion and insight should be restricted to those who are trained and experienced in such writing. For example, anyone who has not blogged for at least two years simply does not have the experience needed to be a blogger.

@Angry Gamer You’re in luck, we were just talking about how whimsical ramblings are all well and good but they’re just not directly contributing in an empirically measurable fashion to the progress of MMOs. Watch out for a change in blog title to “Practical Suggestions That Are Achievable With Current Technology And Realistic Staffing Levels With A Full Cost Benefit Breakdown Spreadsheet Attached In A Smiling Accident”, kicking things off with a series of posts on The Effect On Network Traffic Patterns Of Two And Three Tier Client-Server Architectures. Here’s a sneak peak of Table 3: Ping Times For Scenario B

That’s such a perfect example of the sort of imperious presumption that is so terribly wrong in certain sections of the industry; I think I might have it printed on a t-shirt.

@Helistar: Right, that’s two paradox-o-meters you lot owe me.

@Klepsacovic: I’m sure there are bloggers who think that way, I doubt this is an attitude reserved purely for a certain subset of game developers.

@Zoso: FFS dude, now I have to come up with another post for tomorrow. Maybe that one on how the design for real-time head-tracked helmet-mounted pilot/aircraft/ground-stabilised symbol interfaces could be used to improve game UIs?

It’s so rare that I find myself enjoying BOTH sides of a “discussion” so very much. This blog entry, and all of the comments, have me chuckling and smiling… Thank-you to each and every one of you… it was a group effort – well played team!

From the ‘respected’ journos I have quizzed over their qualifications etc many have never studied journalism and have come from less literal backgrounds. Shouldn’t devs listen to the people who pay their wages and be less concerned with the thoughts of the high-brow?